NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said all 26 member nations will allow their troops in Afghanistan to provide emergency support to allied units anywhere in the country, despite criticism that some are refusing to authorize commanders to send their soldiers into more dangerous regions.
"In case of emergency, every single ally will come to the assistance and help every other ally," de Hoop Scheffer said.
"I'm confident that is the case, because I am confident that all 26 allies have exactly the same interpretation of what solidarity means," he said.
At the NATO summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Riga, Latvia is expected to focus on the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.
Although all the allies have troops in the 32,800-strong force, Britain, Canada, the US and others in the front line of the battle in the Taliban's southern heartland have complained that Germany, Italy, Spain and France are keeping their troops in the more peaceful north and west.
De Hoop Scheffer appealed for all nations to withdraw "caveats," or restrictions, on where their troops can operate, but he sought to downplay the increasingly bitter debate. He insisted the summit would confirm that under threat, all allies would stand together.
"The Riga summit should underline that in case of emergency every ally will come to the assistance of every other ally," he said during a news conference on Friday.
"That's definitely achievable," he said.
He came to the defense of Germany which has faced criticism for keeping its troops in the northern sector.
"It is unfair and not justified to focus in the question of caveats on Germany," de Hoop Scheffer said.
He emphasized that German troops were "doing a lot."
Germany has 2,700 troops stationed in Afghanistan -- the third largest contingent after the US and Britain.
Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted they will remain based in the north, the government has said units could be sent for short-term, emergency missions elsewhere in the country.
De Hoop Scheffer said he was confident nations would step up with contributions to the elite NATO Response Force (NRF) in the next few days so that leaders can meet a deadline for declaring the 25,000-strong unit ready for action in Riga.
"We should not miss that deadline," he told reporters.
"We're almost there, but almost is not enough," he said.
He acknowledged it would be a political blow if allies failed to fill remaining gaps in the force, but "not an absolute disaster."
The NRF is the spearhead of NATO's efforts to modernize its military to deal with new threats.
Three years after the divisions over the Iraq war, de Hoop Scheffer stressed the unity of the alliance despite continued US-France splits over a range of issues on the alliance agenda.
He said the summit would produce compromises.
"The allies will find themselves on the different subjects," he said. "I don't see a schism, NATO is in good health."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not